Dozens More Farmers Imprisoned in Sagaing Division Over Land Protest

A defendant waves at fellow villagers as she and other farmers are taken away in a police truck after a court hearing at Kantbalu Township Court on July 14. (Photo: Min Naing Thu / The Irrawaddy)

MANDALAY — Sagaing Division authorities have taken further harsh action against farmers in Kantbalu Township who claim their land was grabbed, as a court sentenced another 47 villagers to prison terms last week, according to families of the detained, who said that 15 of the men have been transferred to remote prisons.

On July 17, Kantbalu Township Court began handing down the verdicts in a mass trial against some 300 farmers and sentenced 18 farmers to prison terms varying from three years to 3 months on charges of trespassing and causing losses or damage because they had plowed land that is being used by a sugar cane company.

In the days that followed, another 47 farmers were convicted for similar charges and at least three men were sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, villagers told The Irrawaddy on Friday, adding that most were sentenced to three-month prison terms.

In a further punishment for the impoverished families, authorities decided to transfer at least 15 prisoners from Shwe Bo Township Prison to serve time in remote prisons in Mandalay and Pegu divisions.

“They’ve sentenced the farmers with harsh punishments without giving back their confiscated lands,” said Ko Gyi, a land rights who is helping the farmers to submit an appeal.

“Now, moving them to prisons far away from Kantbalu is like further humiliation for the farmers and their families. They did this to frighten the farmers and it is meant like a warning not to protest for the return of their lands,” he said.

Tun Aung, a family member of one of the jailed farmers, said, “Some were transferred to Pakokku Prison; some were even transferred to prisons in Myingyan, Pegu and Taungoo.

“It will be very difficult for us to go a place that far. Some families do not even know about the prison transfer and some broke down after they found out,” he added.

The farmers and the families are planning to submit an appeal to the harsh sentences at the Sagaing Divisional Court. Roughly 240 other farmers are awaiting their verdicts in the trial in coming days and weeks, and many could face imprisonment.

Authorities have come down hard on residents of eight villages in Kantbula Township after a businessman filed a lawsuit for trespassing and causing damages to his sugar plantation during a communal protest by farmers in May.

Government officials decided to charge some 300 farmers involved in the protest during which they began plowing land, a popular form of protest by farmers trying to defend their land rights in Burma these days.

The land in Kantbula Township was part of some 3,500 acres that was forcibly confiscated by a local army unit in 1997 and later leased to local businessmen, who have since been planting it with sugar cane.

The farmers have been trying to reclaim the land for several years and filed complaints with authorities. They had some success after the Ministry of Defense announced in March 2013 that it would hand back most of the land. However, the company who leased the lands has reportedly refused to vacate the sugar plantation, sparking tensions that led to the May protest.

Under the former military regime, hundreds of thousands hectares of land were seized from communities all over Burma and any dissent against the land grabs was brutally crushed.

After President Thein Sein’s government introduced political reforms, farmers across Burma have come forward to reclaim their seized land. Meanwhile, agro-industry businesses are rapidly expanding in the country, leading to new cases of land-grabbing.

One Response to Dozens More Farmers Imprisoned in Sagaing Division Over Land Protest

I have seen groups of farmers taken to District Council offices by trucks very often in Burma to educate them to sell their quotas of paddies to Govt. with Govt.fixed price.Sometimes they haven’t produced enough paddies after harvest,so they had hard time to fulfill their selling quotas.
For rice growing is not as easy as we thought.The farmers’ lives have cycles of pawning gold chains for buying fertilizer,selling off their cows and their future produce with ripped off price in advance to small mom and pop traders in small towns.
As a rule of thump ,a farming family is able to prouduce enough padddies just enough consumption for 2 years.If so,it is worth to do it.Merchanized farming is a good thing.We could creat win-win situtation with farmers.
Sharecropping is one the most suitable thing in Burma,with sound agreements with farmers should be utilised.Leveling of the land,makeing each farmer’s land boundary and sharing the profits with the tenant farmer.I do have highest hope in doing sharecropping in order to maximize our rice production and solving other problems.